How did you get started in ethnodoxology?
By being friends with people who made up the word and then built the network: Paul Neeley, Robin Harris, and more. I came alongside what Robin and ICE were doing in the early 2000s. At that time, I already had an M.A. in ethnomusicology and had worked in DR Congo doing Bible translation and ethnomusicological research, encouraging people to use their arts in the church.
It was during my time in Congo, at a funeral in Bili among the Mono people, that the idea of a catalyst and research library first came to me—research connected with indigenous hymnody, connecting local, traditional music with the creation of traditional hymns. After receiving a PhD from UCLA, I came to Dallas as the SIL International Arts Coordinator and also taught principles of ethnodoxology in the linguistics school in Dallas. Ethnodoxology was a combination of what I had learned from Vida Chenoweth about ethnomusicology and other missiological principles; Tom Avery and I worked on extending these principles from music to the other arts.

What has been one of your favorite moments in ethnodoxology?
I was living in France after being in Congo. When I returned to Dallas for a conference, Paul and Linda Neeley took me to their church in Duncanville, TX, and after being away in foreign contexts for so long, it meant so much to worship God in my own heart artistic languages. Hearing songs that I knew and were familiar to me, I started weeping. This is one of the experiences that I want to help other people have—to be able to connect with God in the deepest ways possible.

What do you hope will be different in 25 years through ethnodoxology?
In 25 years I hope there will be no ethnomusicology, ethnoarts and ethnodoxology—instead, arts will be integrated into every central mission strategy in the world. Arts can be the most powerful forms of communication. Jesus is not just the written word; logos was also involved in causing the universe to come into existence through his words, creating things (flowers, animals) and cultures (various styles of singing, dancing, etc.). I hope that the use of arts will be second nature, the default stance in learning what God is creating in other people’s communities.

Do you suppose that while creating flowers, cultures, etc., God may have been singing rather than just speaking? Seems plausible that “Let there be light” might have been a lyric, not just a declaration.

Absolutely. There are so many kinds of words and sounds and patterns that a human voice can produce. How much more should we retreat from defining what flowed from YHWH’s mouth. Here are some poetic words related to the subject:

Imagine you’ve just arrived in Heaven and you sense something around, above, beneath, vibrating, resonating with the basic frequencies of your fundamental nature. You’ll listen, look, smell, feel your way to the source of the sensations, liquid strength rushing through every atom, increasing with every step you take closer and closer and closer.

Light blazing and burning and healing
Sounds breaking and rumbling and restoring
Aromas choking and overpowering and clearing every passage for more and more breath

And then…
and then…

The Father and Lamb and Spirit extinguishing every. other. thought. feeling. idea.

Then awareness of others experiencing this with me. Around the throne. The throne.

Sounds and colors and movements and faces and smells and tastes all at once no holding back everything flowing in adoring and praising and loving and giving to the
only God most high!

Cacophonies of every life, angel, cherubim, seraphim,
expressing every nation
in every pattern
with no reserve
crowded around the throne. The throne!

Incomprehensible diversity patterned by love invading every particle of our wills and minds and hearts

Around the throne we enact scrolls with writing, proclaiming in loud voices, crying out, thousands of angels saying together, singing new songs, falling to worship on their faces.

But inexplicably, YHWH will invite us to turn away. “How can we do that?! We are finally home, with you? I will not leave!”

“Ah, but I am king over all of my kingdom. All of Heaven and all of New Earth – they are your home. Explore…nothing, absolutely nothing can separate you from me. This was true on the shadow Earth, but here you will always know it. Further up and further in, eh? You remembered Revelation 5 & 7 well, but you forgot 21 & 22. Shalom, peace, health, love, joy, projects and organizations and nations bringing their finest products to honor me in my holy city, creativity unhindered by sin, every aspect of my kingdom redeemed, refurbished, renewed, infinities upon infinities of limits to reach and surpass. Your workshop. Your playground. Your communion with all the saints. Go.”